


Countdown to Christmas

by fromward (from)



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, Holidays, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-23
Updated: 2004-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/from/pseuds/fromward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's almost Christmas, a time to come home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Countdown to Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sage (sageness)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageness/gifts).



> Beta: kitkat3979, nel_ani, suzvoy, & shattered  
> Notes: Written for the SV Holiday Carol Fic Exchange & originally posted on LJ.

December 24, 07:00 pm CST

“We’re making our final approach into Metropolis International.”

 

The pilot’s voice on the intercom broke his concentration, causing him to look up from drafts of water operating contracts that the L.A. office had composed for his perusal.

 

“Welcome home, Mr. Luthor.”

 

Lex grimaced and closed the pigskin leather folder on the lacquered mahogany-topped table in front of him. Settling back in his wide seat, he gazed through the oval window at the city lights below.

 

Seconds later, he saw the shadow of his personal assistant, Sylvia, flit across and back again as she retrieved his work for safekeeping and returned to the area she shared with Mercy on every flight.

 

Keen memory told him that, according to the latest FAA statistical handbook, a third of aviation accidents occurred during the landing phase. He entertained the familiar picture of a large headline “LEX LUTHOR, DEAD AT 29” and smiled to himself. There was comfort, at least, in the fact that the number had continued to grow since he first thought of it five years ago.

 

The increasingly cool feel of the cabin air was cut short at the neck by the snug fit of his collar and tie. Rubbing his brows with the V of his thumb and middle finger, he made an effort to exhale and closed his eyes.

 

07:14 pm

As the plane taxied on the runway, the LexCorp flight attendant asked him if there was anything else that he needed. He shook his head and made a mental note to check on the end-of-year bonuses before flying out to Taipei the day after tomorrow.

 

She stood at the head of the cabin until they came to a stop and fetched his grey suit jacket from the small closet by her station. When he was ready to leave – Mercy and Sylvia waiting a few seats behind – she smiled and said, “Happy Holidays, sir.”

 

Lex attributed his inability to form a reply to the fact that Californian weather had left him ill-prepared to deal with the chill of Metropolis in winter. A part of him was tempted to instruct the pilot to refuel and fly them to South America, but he had to stay. There was his mother to see in the morning. He disembarked and made his way to the waiting limousine.

 

07: 27 pm

His chauffeur greeted him with a small deferent nod of the head. “Good evening, Mr. Luthor.”

 

He entered the car with Mercy and Sylvia in tow. “Take us to the office, Greg,” he heard the latter say.

 

“Yes, Ma’am.” The door shut.

 

***

 

 _Five weeks earlier …_

The night had been extremely slow for Superman. Too slow. It was as if all of the criminals in the city had gone clean or were at home watching the Sharks play a winning game and he knew that both were impossible.

 

Hovering over the more dangerous side of town, Superman wondered if the quiet had anything to do with the unusual meeting between Luthor and Intergang a few days ago. If Clark Kent had not been in the pit of the Metropolis Library archives at the time, looking up agricultural references from the 1930s with lead pipes all around him, he might have found out what his old friend had been up to. Instead, here he was, pensive and itching for some action that would justify the spandex for tonight.

 

He flipped onto his back and floated – gaze unfixed – underneath the stars. On the last birthday that he’d spent in anyone’s company, Lex had told him about the Vela pulsar, the remnant of a supernova that had happened one hundred and twenty centuries ago. Once as bright as the moon, it was now a tiny neutron star, invisible to the naked eye. Yet, Lex had enthused, it was still spinning away at an impressive rate and pulsing radiation as it did so; it was still very much alive. He liked to think that he and Lex were not that different from it. As estranged as they were, as non-existent as their friendship was, something – love, maybe – had refused to die.

 

Deep in thought, it took him a few moments to realize that someone, at last, had been crying out for help. He sped to the location – the corner of Macaulay and Green – as soon as possible, but stopped a building short to make sure that it wasn’t a trap of any kind. The night had been too odd for him to not take greater precaution than usual.

 

What he found made him even more perplexed.

 

There was a thug who seemed to have just taken a man’s wallet while holding him at gunpoint against a lamppost with his hands in the air; and sure, that was a sight Superman had seen a thousand times this year. Next to him, however, was another thug who was shouting: “You’re not supposed to do that. Put the gun away. Put the gun away.”

 

“What are ya talking about, Wrench?” the one with the gun asked, sounding irritated as he switched from watching his victim to looking at his friend and back.

 

“Didn’t you get the order? It’s from way up! No activity tonight or it’s your life,” Wrench replied in a loud whisper.

 

The other thug’s eyebrows rose along with Superman’s. “No activity?” He lowered his gun to the relief of the man against the post.

 

“No! Now give that wallet back to the man, Freddy.”

 

“But I need the money,” Freddy said, his grip on the wallet loosening nonetheless.

 

“Come on.” Wrench grabbed the stolen item and returned it to its confused owner. “I’ll show you where you can collect some,” he said to Freddy.

 

Freddy looked at his ex-victim and back at Wrench, as if trying to figure out if he was being had. “Collect some?”

 

“Come on! Don’t you know anything?” Wrench tipped his hat at the man who had cried for help and pulled Freddy by the shoulder around the corner and down the empty street.

 

After making sure the man was alright, Superman followed the two thugs down to a bar he had long suspected was a cover for one of the local crime families’ gambling operations.

 

Setting himself down on the roof, he scanned the backroom to find a queue of recognizable petty thieves and the city’s other undesirables. At the head of the line was a table with stacks of cash and an armed goon standing by it. A man was doling out a few hundred dollars to each criminal as he or she came up to the table.

 

His first instinct was to round everyone up and ask them to explain their activities. He couldn’t think of an excuse to do so, however, because nothing about it seemed illegal. Even the money – and he had checked every single bill with his vision – was real and clean. If the criminals were being paid to not commit a crime, moreover, wasn’t it a good thing?

 

Deciding to save the questions of philosophy for later, Superman tried to focus on who could be behind this scheme and for what reason. He stuck to his current coordinates, but floated up to a height where no one in the neighborhood could see him.

 

Years later, he would admit that denial was a big part of why his mind didn’t wander to the suspect with the greatest likelihood of being tonight’s mastermind.

 

***

 

December 24, 08:20 pm CST

The LexCorp guard stood up as he passed the reception desk. “Good evening, sir.”

 

He gave the man a small smile and thanked him for working tonight.

 

The hollow lobby was filled with the nervous laugh he received as a reply before Mercy’s stare quieted the guard down.

 

Lex briefly wondered what his employees thought of him.

 

As they moved on towards the elevators, he instructed his assistant to send word to the L.A. office that the contracts were satisfactory.

 

09:29 pm

“Good evening, Metropolis, and Merry Christmas from all of us here at MKTC.”

 

Lex lamented at how even the business news program was full of uninspiring holiday items concentrated mainly on the retail sector. Using the remote control, he turned the plasma TV off. He then pressed the call button on the desk’s panel and moved, laptop in hand, to the sitting area in his office.

 

Mercy entered just after Lex sank into one of the steel and leather Basculant chairs. He told her to return to the penthouse, ensure that the fresh flowers for his mother would be ready and wait for him there. For once, she did not argue against leaving him alone.

 

11:21 pm

A knock on his office door. “I’m going now, Mr. Luthor. Merry Christmas.”

 

Sylvia had three grown children who liked to open presents at midnight. He liked to think that he understood.

 

***

 

 _Four weeks earlier …_

Clark held the kitchen door open for his father when Jonathan, arms laden with the motorcycle parts he’d been fixing all morning, left for the barn. The smell of fresh air cleared his brain of the foggy aroma of sweet potatoes and he found himself blurting out, as he sat down on the pantry, “I just don’t get it, Mom.”

 

The full head of red hair turned away from the turkey for a moment. “Don’t get what, honey?”

 

“I’ve been doing this job for almost a year now,” he said with some apprehension. Starting this topic was not always comfortable for him. “You know, the one not at the Planet.”

 

Martha paused and moved to face him, shifting the hot turkey pan along. She smiled as if to urge him to continue.

 

“Everyday I hear people screaming for help because they’ve been the victim of some crime or other.” He sighed, fidgeting with the sleeves of his new sweater. “I mean, this is why I took the job in the first place, right?”

 

Martha followed his nod with one of her own.

 

“But today,” he continued, “there’s nothing. Other than at accidents that the emergency services have been able to take care of, I’ve heard no other pleas for help.”

 

“Well, it _is_ Thanksgiving, Clark.” Sometimes he couldn’t tell if his mother was joking or being absolutely serious. “Maybe the Metropolitan underworld is a little bit more considerate than you think,” she said with a wink.

 

Clark smiled even though her joke had unnerved him. There was no point in ruining what had been an otherwise nice day. He watched her work on the cooked turkey for a while until she looked at him again, somehow aware that there was something on his mind. It could have been the milk bottle cap that he’d spun over and over across the wooden countertop.

 

“It happened on my birthday, too,” he said, shrugging to lighten the moment up a little.

 

The shrug didn’t do much. The weight of his revelation hung sharp in between the aromatic scents of their family meal.

 

“It did?” she finally said.

 

“Yeah.”

 

His mother put her gloved hands down and rested them on the edge of the pantry. He didn’t fail to notice, however, that she seemed less at ease than before. “Is that why you were able to come home and actually sit down for some cake?”

 

Clark nodded with a smile, arms placed in between himself and his mug of cocoa. “Yeah.” It had been a great couple of hours of food and conversation before he’d felt bad about leaving the city unguarded even though there hadn’t been any crime to stop.

 

Martha turned back to the stuffed bird, but not before gazing into his eyes as if she’d been searching for oddities, as if the strangeness of the events had seeped into him and she wanted it out.

 

“Mom?”

 

“That’s a lovely coincidence,” she said, looking up from the turkey for a second and then back down again.

 

Sometimes Clark wished his parents wouldn’t try to treat their son as a five-year-old whenever they were reluctant to share their thoughts with him. “Maybe for one or the other, Mom, but both my birthday and Thanksgiving?”

 

Her chuckle sounded wry, but he couldn’t be sure. She dropped some pearl onions into the pan and said: “Why don’t you go call your dad? The game is starting soon, isn’t it?”

 

Clark stared at his mother before he picked up the pan and returned it to the oven without being asked.

 

***

 

December 25, 01:09 am CST

His cell phone rang twice before he picked it up and answered.

 

“Merry Christmas, Lex.”

 

He dropped his pen onto the desk and stood up to stretch himself. “How’s Istanbul, Lucas?”

 

“It’s actually very festive,” his half-brother said, the background noise confirming his word.

 

Lex guessed that Lucas was at a private Christmas brunch thrown by one of Turkey’s richest and dearest. “Still an odd choice for the holidays.”

 

“Not compared to yours, big brother.” He could hear the dark-haired boy laughing as he sat back down.

 

“The TSE just closed. I have to take a look at the Nikkei,” he said, letting his chair swivel to reveal a panoramic view of the Metropolitan skyline. “Merry Christmas, Lucas.”

 

“Don’t work too hard, Lex,” Lucas joshed before talking to someone who was near enough for him to hear on the line.

 

He silenced his phone with a single click.

 

***

 

 _Two weeks earlier …_

“Keeeeeeeent!” Perry hollered from his office.

 

Clark got up from his chair and traversed the mass of desks and papers stacked hip-high on the carpeted floor. “Yes, Chief!” he shouted midway when he heard his name being called again by his boss.

 

“How are you, Kent?” Perry asked as Clark closed the door behind him.

 

“Fine, sir.”

 

What followed was a long speech he was sure had absolutely nothing to do with the six-page exposé on the Moretto crime family that half the staff were staying back for tonight. He didn’t remember hearing anything about rabbit gene experiments.

 

Clark suspected that he was being used as a test audience for a talk that Perry had to give to someone else, but he didn’t mind. He could use the rest after such a hectic week and despite Perry’s booming voice, it was much quieter in his office than the rest of the floor.

 

Half an hour later, he exited Perry’s office to find his co-workers buzzing around the middle of the newsroom floor and the atmosphere a little less stressful. When he got closer, Clark could see a table full of food and drinks from what seemed to be every restaurant within a ten-block radius of the Daily Planet building.

 

“This is definitely an improvement,” said Randall, one of the guys who worked the metro beat with him and Lois.

 

He glanced at the menu Randall just gave him for no apparent reason.

 

“Hey, Clark, look. This is exactly what I always get at Pepe’s.” Robinson, a journalist he’d interned with once, grinned as she passed him holding a fajita and a can of soda.

 

“If Thomson knew about this, he wouldn’t have left early and deserted me with this crap,” Kelly the fact-checker said to him as she reached for a slice of pizza. “He calls this an edit?” She pointed to a few pages of paper in her hand with the small end of the slice. “I mean, what a hack.”

 

Clark smiled and nodded. Everyone seemed to be entranced by the bounty before them, except for himself … and Lois. Dressed in one of her professional suits, she stood leaning against their desks, surveying the floor. In her tapping hands was a cup of coffee that had probably been part of the massive delivery. Clark could tell that while she was silent, her brain was whirring with questions.

 

Kelly, now with a new container of food, shrugged and said: “Well, at least I get to have the tempura udon since he’s not here.”

 

He must have given her a strange look because she flinched and backed away. Not getting any food or drink for himself, Clark began to walk toward his desk. Lois was now watching him, her eyes interrogative in their concern.

 

Randall followed him to their work area. “You should go back in there and thank the Chief for us, Kent.” He was older and liked to treat Clark as if Clark was everyone’s little brother. “Seems he’s been keeping tabs on what we like.”

 

“I don’t think he’s the one who sent all this food,” Clark said. The person who did this had money to burn, money to give away. The person who did this had the goods on everyone, including Clark.

 

“The Chief can’t even tell the difference between a Danish and a croissant,” Lois said, still looking at him.

 

Randall cracked his knuckles and fixed the yellow pencil behind his ear in between mouthfuls of fries. “Well, it’s definitely not from Moretto and the gang.”

 

He kept walking, past his desk and a cluster of others, toward the windows facing the glass and steel building across the street. He had to see. He just had to see.

 

“There’s some apple pie if you’re hungry, Kent,” someone said above the din.

 

He could hear Jimmy calling him about that paragraph he still hadn’t been able to nail down. “Hey, CK.” Jimmy’s voice was drawing near and Clark shook the paper in his hand as a sign telling him to wait.

 

He went around the last desk – O’Connor’s – and pushed the chair behind it aside to get a full view through the window.

 

“Clark! Do you want this pie or can I have it?” another person asked.

 

Clark gazed up to the top floor of the old LuthorCorp – now LexCorp – building and scanned along its width. It didn’t take long for him to see a figure in the corner office looking back at him.

 

“Hey, Smallville. What are you doing?”

 

Without amplifying his vision, he knew he’d caught an old-fashioned tumbler raised in salute. He lifted a hand to the pane of glass and waved. Clark might have been a dork, but he was not a fool.

 

***

 

December 25, 03:27 am CST

Lex took the circuitous path to the elevators, pausing for a moment in front of the closed doors of an empty office left as it had always been. “Merry Christmas, Dad.”

 

***

 

 _One week earlier …_

Wanting to help his parents with the family Christmas preparations this year, Clark took an extended lunch break and sped home to Smallville. After a hearty meal and some coffee, his mother sent “the Kent men” to find a holiday tree at the McGinty farm.

 

When they arrived, Old Man McGinty was helping another family with their chosen tree, a five-foot Fraser Fir. He and his father decided to go ahead and look at what was on offer.

 

Deep into the lot, Jonathan picked up a conversation that they’d left open on his last visit. “Are you sure you want to do this, son?”

 

“Yes, Dad. I’m sure.” He ran his hand along the trees as he moved from one to the next, admiring their beauty.

 

Jonathan stopped to appraise a blue spruce that topped off at his eye level. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Clark,” he said, glancing at his son. “One man’s gift is another man’s dagger.”

 

It was in the next row that Clark found what he was looking for. “Let’s take this tall one, Dad. Lex used to say that it’s not a Christmas tree unless you need a ladder to get to the top.”

 

“Wait till he knows that you don’t need one,” Jonathan said as he stepped over.

 

Clark couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the afternoon.

 

***

 

December 25, 07:17 am CST

When dawn arrived, Lex took his time to freshen up before taking the elevator down to the garage to access his fleet of sports cars. Mercy laid the fresh flowers in the passenger seat of the silver Porsche and got into another vehicle to follow him from behind. He left the building knowing that that he’d be a little early for sunrise. He didn’t care. He’d had enough of lying in his bed staring at the pale blue ceiling.

 

Downtown Metropolis was deserted and he had a clear view of the Lillian Luthor Memorial as he approached it in moderate speed.

 

Mercy, to her credit, stayed on the other side of the avenue when he parked and sat in the car gazing at the marble edifice. He told himself that it would be a good idea to retain her for an indefinite period of time.

 

At the sight of the morning’s first golden streaks, Lex stepped out of the car with an armful of red Mokara orchids and made his way to his mother’s snow-flecked resting place.

 

07:31 am

“Merry Christmas, Lex.” Against the blinding sunrise stood a man that Lex never thought would speak to him in such an intimate manner again.

 

“Clark,” he greeted, holding Mercy’s advancing figure at bay with the wave of a hand.

 

Dressed in a pair of jeans and an old tan coat that Lex recognized from their days in Smallville, Clark was holding what seemed to be a folded blanket in between his arm and torso.

 

Clark glanced at the Porsche as he drew near. “Is the alarm on your car on?”

 

Lex nodded. “Yes.”

 

Clark shook the blanket open and smiled. “Good.”

 

“What are you doing?” Lex asked out of surprise when he found himself covered from shoulders to feet by red fleece.

 

An arm wrapped around Lex’s waist. “It’s going to be cold up there.”

 

Inhaling the quiet scent that he had sorely missed, Lex took in the skin that he had never dared to touch. “Up …” he started and then let go when – seconds later – they were hovering in the air, a few hundred feet above Metropolis.

 

“Thank you for the birthday present, Lex.” Clark smiled, one hand cupping his face. “And for Thanksgiving, too.”

 

“I didn’t—” Clark’s kiss silenced him and the dull, age-old fear that had sprang in his gut when he’d realized that there was nothing between them and the hard ground below. “You’re welcome,” he said when Clark pulled him into a hug and breathed just below his ear, both erotic and warm.

 

“If I promise to spend every Christmas with you, will you be good?”

 

He laughed. “Just Christmas?”

 

Clark drew back, rolling his eyes, a sheepish smile on his face. “Let’s go, Lex.”

 

07:45 am

Church bells were ringing as they left Metropolis. Lex didn't have to ask where they were going; he knew wherever they ended up would be home.

 

 

 _The church bells in town  
They're ringing a song  
What a happy sound  
Baby please come home..._


End file.
